KGCI: Real Estate on Air - State of Business 2026: Mastering AI and Time Value with Gogo Bethke

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

Summary:Gogo Bethke joins John Kitchens to discuss the "State of Business" for 2026, focusing on how the acceleration of technology allows agents to work less while making more. Gogo shares how she uses AI to create content in seconds—even replacing her physical presence in videos—to sustain a 15-hour work week. The episode provides a practical framework for calculating your true hourly rate to filter "good" ideas from "great" ones, emphasizing that agents must prioritize human connection and "unreasonable hospitality" to thrive in an automated market.

Seven-figure success starts when you start thinking like a CEO. Welcome to the John Kitchens coach podcast experience. This is your host, John Kitchens. Get ready to think bigger and transform your business into a path to lasting freedom. Happy New Year and welcome to Expert Mentors Live, 2026. And for the last seven years, Ms. Go-Go, our seventh year to kick off the new year.

year with expert mentors live and it's evolved. When we started, it was more state of social media. As you've evolved and you've grown, it has become state of the business. And no different this year, ready to kick things off. Like, I don't even know where to start with you as far as the, just the amount of frequency see an intensity that that you have been accelerating with throughout 2025. So I would love for you to maybe just kind of, let's kind of do a recap on 25 and then we'll look at kind of where things are, what we're kind of seeing, what you're anticipating,

26 to be the springboard into 27 and 28 to look like. I will say one thing, 2025 felt like one of the fastest. years of my life. And I don't know if that's a lot change. A lot change and very fast. And what was it because of just the intensity of noise, the intensity of just things happening, things out there, information, just is that accelerating? Or what is what is causing to at least the feeling of acceleration as we're, you know, barreling down, you know, into 26 and making our way to the end of the decade. So I think it has to do a lot, but of course I can only explain it from my perspective

because there are so many things in the industry that I don't do. Right. So like the cold callings and the door knockings and the mailers and the ISA teams and all of those things I don't do. So I don't know what's going on in the industry on that side of the industry. But because of where I spend my time, which is technology and AI and automations and CRM programs and how can you work less and make more money. And that side of the world, a lot has changed.

Like, you remember how excited we were about Chad GPT? And now we have all these other AIs that literally will create content for you in seconds. And you don't even have to ever take a picture. Like, I'm talking, like, if we look back and if we do the math of how many times I posted where I had to be in the pictures or I have to be in the videos, you're totally fine. You can just grab it and do it. If we look at that, like now that's going to remove all of this AI. will going to allow me not to even have to be in the photo books and not to have to actually create the content.

It will create it for me, which then now, you know, I'm huge on working less and making more money. So now I can work even less. I already only work 15 hours a week. But now I can work even less. Like yesterday I created and I can show you actually have a presentation if you figure out how to share the screen. I could show you a really cool content where I took a picture off of Pinterest. I'm not in it. It's not my picture.

It's just somebody then I like the way she looked. And I turned that into myself with a click of a button, nearly less than 15 seconds. Then I took that new image of myself, which by the way, it's not me, but it is me, because it looks just like me, because AI took my face and put it on somebody else's body, right? And then I took that image and put it into another AI,

but then literally less than 30 seconds, I gave it a script, and that AI is talking and saying exactly what I wanted to say. And I'm not in it. And it took less than 30 seconds, which means that now I don't even have to create anymore. I can have my team create for it. create for me. Right? So if we truly talking about how can you make more money working less, technologies and AI is what's going to allow you to do that. And the faster you learn that,

and I know it's like Chinese to most of us is Chinese to meet you guys. I wasn't born. In December of 1981 when I was born, let me just tell you, I did not get an SOP of how to run these AIs. And if you don't know what an SOP is, it's a standard operating procedure, right, of how to actually do something. I didn't get an SOP back then. So it was good to me. and it is new to you. All you need to do is push the buttons. Push the buttons and learn it because the faster you learn it, the faster you are going to be able to work less.

And one more thing, be able to market from one to many. Because when it comes to marketing, right, there's this saying is it matters of who you know. Yes, it does. It does matter who you know. It gets you into rooms. But what really matters is who knows you. So when you have, let's say,

create content and it takes you, let's say, three minutes from start to finish, by the time you type it up and you hashtag it and all that, you create it through AIs and all of that, let's say it takes you three minutes. If you make it a phone call that takes you three minutes, you're talking to one person. If you do or not, that takes you three minutes, which, by the way, they didn't talk to you if it's three minutes. They shut the door on you and you walk off the driveway. You're talking to one person.

Your possibility of turning that one person into a client is whatever, right? But if you create social media content and you put that on to all of your social. So now we're talking Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, you can name it, whatever you exist and email it out. Now you're talking that one content is talking to thousands of people at the same time. And what are the chances that out of those thousands of people somebody is buying or selling right now? Yeah. Much higher than that one person that you talk about. Yeah.

And it's just a return on time. Yeah. So that's how you need to look at it. learn these technologies, automate your life, remove yourself from it, let technology replace you. How did, you know, you embracing, because you've always embraced it, embraced the technology. Is the framework for you go-go, like what you just said, you know, how can I work less and make more money? Is that the filter that you're trying to run everything through, or do you have a different filter you're running things through? Two-fold question. Number one, yes.

I'm always, I know my hourly rate. And I also understand that an hour of my time is an hour of my life. So let's say you go around your dad bed right now, would you be door knocking? If you know that this one hour you could be spending with your family or friends or actually live your life, would you be door knocking or whatever that is how you make money? If the answer is no, then that means you're not valuing. It's that whatever you're doing is that making you enough money where you are willing to exchange an hour of your life for it. right so now my hourly rate is so high then I really narrow down what am I willing to do

and what I'm not willing to do for how much money because I'm exchanging an hour of my life for it right so that's number one filter number two filter technology does come very easy to me I don't know why I am like that annoying three-year-old that you gave them an iPhone and it just start pushing buttons and next thing you know they're like watching sponge bob somehow and you never showed them how to do it right And so that's how I look at technology. Like I just go in there like that annoying three-year-old and I start pushing buttons. I love that. Yeah.

Like it's not going to fight. It's not going to kick back. It's not going to start yelling at you. Yeah. Go in there and, you know, see what happens when you push it. What, how come most people don't have that? Is it they don't understand their value, their worth? Is that why, you know, they allow themselves to be all over the place?

I can guarantee you. If we took 10 people or we took 100, however many people, right? I guarantee you 90% of them have no idea what they're working an hour. Yeah. Guarantee you. Yeah. And that's the reason why they make those decisions because they're trading time for money, not knowing what their time is actually worth.

Rent through and explain why that is so important as we continue to grow and evolve, moving into the future of understanding what your worth is. So let's do the math, how to calculate your hours. just so your hourly rate just so you never make that mistake again. So it's a very simple math and it's actually a perfect timing for it because we are ending a year and starting a new one. So I want you to look at your 2025 year in a whole and I want you to take every penny in consideration that hit your bank account.

Not after expenses or after employees or after taxes or whatever. I don't care about what you spent. I care about what came to you. So let's say that it's $250,000. We're going to take a calculator. you're going to put in $250,000, you are going to divide it by $2,080. The reason why is because if you worked a healthy 40 hours a week, you work 2,080 hours a year. Now, us realtors, none of us work healthy hours, right?

Like they work weekends, we work holidays, like it is nothing healthy about the wheelchair schedule. But the idea is let's try to get you to a healthy 40 hours. Right now, I only work 15-hour weeks. So I started working less and less and less and making more and more, because now it's not worth it for me to do this activity if it doesn't make me $4,300 bucks an hour. I'm not doing it because I know my hourly rate. So now you're going to take the amount of money that you made in 2025.

You're going to divide it by 2008. And that number that's saving at you, that is your current hourly rate. That means if you want to grow, you cannot say yes to anything that does not make you that amount of money at a very minimum. Doesn't mean that you have to say no. that this means that somebody else on your team, that should be delegated to somebody else on your team that makes less in that hour than you do.

If you say yes, you are actually stealing from yourself, you're stealing from your future. You cannot grow if you say yes to activities that don't make you at least the minimum, the current hourly rate. So one of the other things, the way most people make this mistake is they don't know the difference between good and great.

Most people, if I ask you, what is the enemy of good? They're going to say the enemy of good is bad. No, the enemy of good is great. And let me tell you why. Most people spend their time on good ideas. Oh, my God, this is such a good idea. If you say yes to good ideas, you do not have time for great ideas. You have to learn to say no to good ideas.

But the way you can tell the difference between a good idea and a great idea, a good idea, let's hope that it makes at least your current hourly rate. That's a good idea. but if it doesn't or makes less than that and you said yes to it you're losing money but now that you know your hourly rate you look at that activity and say can i potentially make that amount of money in the hour if the answer is no that goes bye-bye so you can leave time for great ideas and that would be your hourly rate plus i love that and in we lose sight of that and i really believe go-go that a lot of people just say yes to everything because they have they don't they just don't have the filters of one, they don't know where they want to go. They don't know what they should be

doing. And there's just a lot of people just floating out there and not really being intentional with what it is they're trying to accomplish. But I love that exercise of starting where, you know, kind of what what you're worth is that that's a great filter. You know, the other filters we talk about, you know, core values, purpose, you know, exit strategy. I had a really good conversation actually with my uncle yesterday and he he does a lot he's he's in the real estate space but he talks to a lot of franchise owners and in independence and you know he hits him with you know what's the will for your business right we talk about you having a will for your life but what's the will for your business and i i hadn't ever really heard it specifically framed that way we always

talk about what's the exit strategy you know a lot of people struggle with that but when you say it really hit me it was like like, well, what's the will for your business? Like, what happens if, you know, you're, you know, on a retreat with go-go and, you know, you get sideswiped by a, by a boat and, you know, what happens to your business? You know, we know what would happen with your life, life insurance policies, all those other contingencies in place, but what happens for your business if something, something happens or what's the continuation? What is that? So I think it's really, really important to have decision-making filters in place to be able to make.

make sure that you're staying between the guardrails and especially pursuing the opportunities of where the business and the industry is going. Looking back, we talked about how fast the year went, how just technology. And I believe the answer is the acceleration of technology also feels like it's accelerating time, to me is what it feels like. It's what it feels like. Because we can get so much more done. And as much as we want to be less busy, because it creates so many more opportunities, and because we can get so much more done in the hour, now we end up working more. That's why it's so important for you to know where you're going, what your hours is worth,

and what's a good idea, and what's a great idea. So for you coming into 25 versus coming into 26, with the acceleration, being able to collapse time, get things done faster, you're able to work less and make more. how has like for your business and lifestyle how has you know 25 adjusted those two aspects of your life with you know personal and in business and then what is that done for you going into 26 so great question i made the decision a couple years ago that i'm not going to work Thursdays and Fridays anymore and it took me over nine months to actually being able to put it into motion because my schedule is always so far out, right?

Like so many months out, I have meetings in my calendar, and I won't cancel someone, but I will block my calendar for the future. So even though I made the decision, I think it was like October, two, three years ago, May something was the first Thursday that I could actually take off. Makes sense, even though I made that decision so long ago because my calendar was so booked.

So I made that decision a few years ago. I only worked Monday to Wednesday for the last two years, but I worked like a mad woman. So really what happened? is I squeezed five days worth into three days. So we ended up working like mad people on Monday to Wednesday where I was back to back to back to back. I ended up having to get an in-person assistant

to make sure I get my vitamins and my water and I eat like yesterday at 541. I was like, why do I have a headache? And so I looked at my assistant and I'm like, did I have lunch today? Yeah. He looked at me and she's like, oh my gosh, I totally forgot to feed you.

So this is why I need assistance, right? Because when I work, I'm just like you. When I work, I work, I work. I don't think about food. I don't think about food until I have a migraine. Right? And so, again, you don't know what you don't know going into overworking yourself. And then I'm like, okay, then something has to change.

We need to put in there some buffer time so I can actually eat, use the bathroom. We need to limit who gets a yes, who gets put in calendar, right? Because I end up in some, like, I'm sorry, but just. conversations and I'm like this could have been an email. You know what I mean? So then we not to get better at limiting those. And then this year I also made the decision that I'm going to hire a personal trainer. And the only time that it works for my personal trainer is Tuesdays and Thursdays at 930. Well, I'm taking Tuesday at 930 off, which means until 4.30 by the time I shower and stuff, it's 11 o'clock. So now I'm down to 15 hour weeks. Monday to Wednesday,

I work 15 hours. And that's it. And we also hired more people. So here's what happens. Like I'm not saying no to opportunities. I'm just not the one who's doing it anymore. I have to create a bunch of mini-means. And I have to replace myself with a bunch of minimis, whose hourly rate is lower than mine, right? So the work still gets done.

So then I'm still making money. I'm just not trading my own time for it. So that way you have to become a good leader. You have to get really good at hiring and knowing exactly what type of skill that person needs to replace you and all of that. And then also you have to get good at technology. Like technology is your cheapest leverage.

So we got right on as soon as chat GPT hit, we were in there. I mean, I had my own voice. And by voice, I mean, it sounds like me, anything that we put out there from website content to email content to blog to anything that you think of a description for a social media post, right? I don't write all of those. Many of them are written by the AI that literally sounds just like me so good. Then if I had to go put my hand in the Bible in court, I couldn't tell you.

if I wrote it or I didn't. It's that good. So when you get good at technology, when you honor your time, when you get good at saying no to people, you get to remove time off of your calendar and spend it with your family. So now I'm down to 15 hours a week. That is my goal for 2026. And then I wanted to add back in certain things and I didn't have time for in the past. And I want to get to teach because I have coaches. I always have coaches. And this is my homework from one of my coaches. I am going to add back Thursday date days because somehow the dates just kind of, you know,

just we got busy and I don't know what happened. That's going to go back on the calendar Thursdays. And I want to start a local entrepreneurial like meet because what happened is we moved to Florida in the last two, three years, right? And I work from home. I have no hobbies. And if I'm leaving the house, I'm going to the airport.

Yeah. So I made you I didn't really make new friends. I made some friends in the neighborhood, but it's not like I want to have like intentional conversations with some people have the same pain and they're in the same shoes. And so now I need to create that for myself. I need to find friends. That's my New Year's resolution is to add back in personal time to take care of my mental and soul. You have to. Friendship needs.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I love that, right? If it doesn't make the calendar, it doesn't happen. And so being able to force that, I think creating community, like what you're talking about, forming some type of, you know, entrepreneurial organization. Because, you know, yeah, you're on an island. I mean, you've got so many people that, you know, work for you. You work with. You got business partners. I mean, you can pick up the phone and pretty much call anybody, you know, within the real estate space and beyond. And they'll take your call in a second. yet you're still on an island. And I think there's so many other small business entrepreneurs out there. And I mean, I love that idea of being able to form. I mean, we did a version of that, but they were our affiliates. Like we fed them from our business. So we created that community of our affiliates, but even taking it a step further

and really creating a space for entrepreneurs to come together. Right? Like I have an amazing online world and I have multiple communities, but they're all online. I can't go out to grab a glass of wine with them tonight because I'm like, hey, do you do anything because I'm free? Can we go out for appetizers in a glass of wine and just chitty chat about things? Right. So I need to create that locally.

I need to have a reason to make the house, make a fun, put, make a phone proposal. Like, I just don't have where to go and who to go with. So I need to add that back. I need to create that pretty much what happens. I worked so much in the last few years. And by the time I was done working, I was exhausted. And I had no interest in making a new friend, right? And then now I'm like, I need friends.

That's a solution. This is a personal conversation over here. I need I need real life in person, friends. Come on. Yeah, not just like people. Then I can go out of it. But I think it applies to all entrepreneurs, right? Like there's a season in our lives when all we do is work.

It's the building phase. Right. And then you're lucky then if at the end of your building phase, you still have friends. Like, we'll be moved. Right? So all of my friends are or back at home in Romania or in Hungary where I went to college or they are in Michigan and now I live in Florida. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's normal, right?

You see with drivers, people, you know, entrepreneurs, business owners that this is normal, right? And you, you know, you do that. And it's not isolation. Like it's just like I just don't have bandwidth. I don't have time to be able to, you know, make those connections until you get to a point, right? Into a season of where you're at that you're at. that you've, you know, strategically, you know, carved out time to re-invest wherever you want to reinvest it.

And so there's a phase in your life where you are your business. And if you stop working, money stops coming in. Right. So you have to hustle through that. You have to hustle through that to make enough money to pay your bills. Then you have to hustle through that to make enough money to pay your bills and to have a life. And then now you have a life and you do the vacations and all that now in order for you to be able to go on vacation, you need support.

So that means now you have to make enough to be able to afford these people and pay your bills and pay for the vacation, right? So all of these phases in the life, you'll have to hustle through it. So finally, eventually I'm at the place where I can make all the money that pays our bills, pays for our lives, pay for all of our employees. But they took me working like a manwoman, which I had no time for life outside of my friends and close, close, close family, right? And then we will.

So now, then I have a bunch of mini-meese and my business makes money if I roll out of bed or I don't roll out of that today because most of my income is passive or reoccurring. Now I'm like, okay, now I need to go and make new friends again. But I just want to take everyone through the journey because somewhere along the way you're going to see yourself. Right. I don't want you to think that you're the only one who goes through this. I'm not the only one who goes through this. Like I have thankfully a lot of friends, again, all over the world, which are not local. And they're a same caliber of being or higher, been there what I want to go.

And I can ask them these questions. So I know I'm not alone. I know that everybody goes through this. It's just I want you to know that if you haven't been there yet, it's coming for you. Yeah, 100% it is. Looking at kind of the evolution and pouring into your team, what were a couple of the strategic, you know, focus, ideas that you did with the team specifically that has, set you up and them up coming into this new year. Okay.

I'm going to take some notes, so I don't forget to say it. So when I joined, mind you, again, I joined EXP eight years ago, right? At that time, you guys, the Honey Badgers existed, but that test fuller movement wasn't the thing, right? And also, even in your group, most of the big names, like, I was the only one who was like a solo agent, right? everybody else big team lead and I was little Nemo swimming with the sharks, right? So what I realized is when it comes to agent attraction, we attract. So if you're recruiting is different. But if you're attracting, that means you attract people just like you.

That's why you're attracted to each other, right? And so what I realized is that most of the agents I was bringing to my downline organization, the team go-go organization, were that solo but top producing racks or agents, but solo. No interest of starting a team or building a team or even if they wanted to, would be just like a local team with like small local team with two buyers agents just so they can go on vacation. They had no interest of having ISA departments and, you know, Zillow premier leads and all of that. So because there was no training for that in my offline, I was like, okay, well, I'm it. Oh shit, I'm it, as I like to say it, right?

So that means I have to create it. So then I started, we did every Wednesday, a production training, every Thursday, that Thursday, Texas, Zana, be Friday agent attraction. We did that probably for six years, right? And by that time, fast forward movement became a thing. Honey Badgers were still there. And you guys provided a lot of training. And then it was redundant of like having all of these trainings in Team Gogol. If you wanted to get them from our offline, take advantage of it.

And so we stopped 30s and Fridays. We kept our Wednesday at 1 o'clock training because I still train on that mindset, technology, AI, you know, social media marketing. And I feel like those type of trainings are missing from the group trainings. And then they go to all the group trainings otherwise. So Wednesdays we kept Thursdays and Fridays we stopped because it was too much trading and we were trained out of our ever-loving minds. So that's one thing.

The other thing that I feel like it keeps the community as a community is that I do gifts. We celebrate our agents. We celebrate the top producers of the month. We celebrate the agent-attractor of the month. We celebrate the icons of the month every single month. And I physically send them a gift or they get an icon T-shirt or they get a a mug or they get a notebook or they get something that's branded to the team gogo organization but we celebrate them every single month we also send out little onesies if somebody has a baby

and it says you know future agent and it says team go go it's just cute like we try to really keep the family as a family and celebrate our agents and feel like they belong because that's what the one of the so set downsides even though i believe xb is the best place to be real estate it is one of the downsides because we are national and international and because we can attract from anywhere. I have agents in Connecticut. I've never been in Connecticut. I literally never been in Connecticut. Right. So that means that I want to make sure that they feel the love and they feel like they belong and they know when their hard work is is being seen and they're being celebrated for their hard work. Right. Everybody likes to achieve and likes to know that their work is seen. Right.

So because we try really hard to celebrate and I think that's what about and I literally send them a physically present. Also, I call every single one of my agents on their birthday. So my frontline agents. I can do this for the whole organization. First of all, I don't know everybody in the organization and I don't know their birthdays, but my frontline agents, I know their birthdays because it's a part of our application process. And so I call every single one of them on their birthday and I sing them happy birthday. And that's like them knowing of like, hey, go go, go thought of me today. It's my birthday and she personally called me. So I leave him a voice note and I sing am I happy world if I be before with an exit.

And then the other thing we do is the in-person events, right? So we really try. I have amazing business partners in my organization, and we really try to support them, right? I'm actually flying up to New Brunswick Canada in March. I have two amazing, well, multiple Canadian agents, but these two who are throwing a big event, and we're going to come up two cities in one day, and we do an event. So in-person, I feel like it's also super important. That's where you really get to know someone.

That's where you get bread with someone and sit down and have dinner and really get to know their business and for them to get to know you so you're not just an online person anymore. So I think these are, I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but these are the things that keeps our community together. Oh, Facebook group and Facebook chat. I think that is also super-re important. So because I have 14 virtual assistance, nothing goes on answered Monday to Friday 9-to-5. So our team members, anybody in the team group organization, when they have a question, they plug it right into the chat,

and then my team is there or I'm there to answer it right away. And then I forgot to mention one more big thing as our TeamGoogle map. Well, we have an interactive map. If you go to Teamgobo.com, that you can check it out. But literally, we use that to keep all the referrals in-house between ourselves,

and we did almost $4 billion in sales this year. That's with the BEE, right? That's our cute little organization, and we refer to each other. So if a team global agent has a referral, and not in their own neck of the woods, it goes to another TeamGoGo agent unless you don't have an agent in that area,

then they go to outsiders. But this is our way of supporting one another, right? This is our way to, as we like to call, we call the TeamGoogle organization, the TeamGoGo International family of agents, because we are international, we have literally all cultures in there. We are in seven or eight different countries

in almost every state in the U.S. and some of these sticks together, right? So I want to make sure that your kids eat this month. And so if I have a referral, I'll send it to a team of Google agent. And because of that, our production is also super high because we send it to send our leads to each other and keep it. Yeah, it's so good.

I mean, that's, you know, really pouring into each other. And like you said, you said it a couple times, right? You've got a tremendous community. Now you're, you know, replicating the thing into 26. Local for you, right, create another community. And I think it's... I need friends too. I think it's the...

Honestly, Google. I really feel, you know, kind of kind of where the state of things are moving into, moving into the future, you know, with the acceleration of technology to have those buffers to not be able to have that real connection. I just feel the direction moving into the future is more connection. Yes. Yeah. Those are the agents. So that's exactly what I wanted to say. Those are the agents who are going to make it big this year.

Right. So use all of the technology for you. your benefit. But what's really going to seal the deal is that eye contact, is that handshake, is that you physically show up. Yeah. And you've layered a few things on that that I want to point out that I think is really important heading into the future when it is more of the human side of things. You talked about gifting. So if you guys aren't up to speed on that, go go read giftology. It's really around kind of the cut co philosophy and what they talk about. But just from a gifting standpoint. I really think we're kind of in the in the in the day and age of of true

unreasonable hospitality. I really think if you haven't you know, you guys listening in. I had Eric Post on expert mentors to wrap up the year. We did it about mid-December. And he's like, hey, go listen. Go read his manifesto. It's at Ericpost.a.i. It's 10 page manifesto right on his site. And we talked about it through expert mentors, but Eric is is really, of that unreasonable hospitality belief, go-go, kind of everything that you're talking about, the real connections. You know, AI is your thought partner, being able to leverage it.

I want to get your take on AI moving into 26. But he said, you know, we're kind of at a fork in the road. And he said, now if you break through the fork and you just go down in the middle, he goes, I think you're going to get eaten alive. And he uses the comprehensive. comparison, the hotel comparison. And he talks about the one hotel that is sleek and cold. There's no human interaction. Everything is AI driven. Like you check in with technology, camera see you, face recognition. You have to check out yourself. I'm like,

everything. I don't spend money anymore. Everything cold. That's a race to the bottom, right? That's like, that's competing on price. And he said the other direction in the fork in the road. And it just resonates with me. It's just because what we really adopted probably in 2010 timeframe was, you know, lifetime value. And he said, you have a choice. You can be this sleek, cold, efficient, or you can be the unreasonable hospitality.

You can be the Ritz Carlton and provide above and beyond. And in everything, and this is what I want to kind of. you know, showcase because everything you're talking about, and I believe it's right moving into the future and you just said it, those that are going to thrive and win big, embrace that unreasonable hospitality, embrace the Ritz Carlton type of service to your clients. Like you're personally making phone calls to your frontline people. Like you're going above and beyond. You're specifically intentionally gifting in a way that's personally relevant to the

individuals. And to me, it's, it's, it's, it's the path to take. It's the path to take. It's, it's to take that and go above and beyond. Hey, quick pause before we keep going. This market is shifting fast. And if you've been feeling the pressure, you're not alone. But here's the thing. It's not going to slow down so you can catch up. I've opened a limited number of executive one-on-one coaching spots this month for agents who are ready to stop spinning their wills and lead with clarity. That's you. Head to john kitchens dot coach and let's go. Now back to the episode.

I want to add on to that. So here's how I do, for example, agent attraction. And every time I show up to an agent attraction call, where the agent who's raising their hand of like, hey, I'm going to join Tingogo and I show up, they're like, oh, you came to the call? They're always like, oh, I thought there's going to be someone from your team. And I'm like, you're going to partner with me, right?

Like, not someone from my team. So I show up to every single one of them. But I show up with the intention knowing that I'm going to close them pretty much 100% of the time. Because I did use technology and I did use all the systems and the calendars and the videos and the filtering and the automated messages and all that. Like everything prior to that was filtered out with systems and processes. By the time they get into my calendar, they're literally so excited they can't wait to sign on the dotted line. And that's what I want everybody to understand is embrace technology because technology is going to be. be able to help you just close deals much faster.

If you are really becoming that local expert where they see nothing but freaking go go go again and go go again and go go again, I mean you, your brand every single day in your local market, you're featuring a business, you're closing another deal, it's just like whatever is going on, they're seeing you constantly and they get on a listing appointment with you and you show up. Do you think they're going to dare to ask you if you would reduce your commission? No. Not in a million years because they're so excited like, I'm not.

I believe you're on the call with me. But if you show up in person, so this is why it's so important to use that social media, to reach as many people as you possibly can, to become the expert by posting so many times, they hear you and see you and you become that expert automatically in their eyes. And then when you show up, it's a close deal. They are lucky that they get to work with you. And that's why it's so important for you to also include, not remove, but include that human element. Yeah, it is.

and looking at kind of into the future with the technology side of things, what what's the mindset that you use to embrace the technology, but also how do you lead and pour into your team of the right way to think about and utilize technology, utilize AI as we continue to move forward? One of the things that we do, they also have to come to the meeting with like, oh, I found something new, right? I want them to be excited that they found something new. So they bring things to the meetings, be like, hey, there's another thing that we can use because I can't be on top of everything by myself.

Right. It's not impossible, but it's impossible. Right. So that would be number one. Number two, I always pay for their coaching. So if there is a new technology like Ched GPT, for example, right? I pay it for Carrie Sovis coaching. I'm not the one who's sitting on that coaching call because I just need to know enough to be dangerous, but I'm not the one going to push the buttons instead of anything up, right?

So then I'll pay for the coaching, but I send my team to the coaching. So they are the one who's going to know everything, become the expert, set it up for me and all of that. So I think it's super important when you know your hourly rate. Well, we also have to take it back a step because for very, very many years, I was like, I am very smart and I can figure out just about anything and how stupid to pay for an expert. I can spend three years of my life to figure it out by myself. How much is three years of your life worth? If someone's selling your coaching program for $5,000,

you're telling me that three years of your life you value at $5,000, that's what it's worth to you? Yeah. Well, then go spend three years on becoming the expert in something. Knock yourself out because while you're learning, you're not making money. Yeah. You know what I mean? So that's number one.

That you have to get just out of the way, put your ego aside and go pay for an expert. That's what I do. And then I put my team to learn that. I will log in to know enough to be dangerous because I like to understand how things work, but I'm never going to be the one who actually do the work. Does that make sense? I don't have the patients pushed about things.

So that's my two cents for your future is befriend technology, hire help with people who have less hourly rate than you do so you can stay on top of everything and win-win. And do you push the team into the trainings, the technology trainings, utilizing AI as based upon what excites them or is it more like you've got to learn this if you want to you know be a part of this a part of this rocket ship or what is what is kind of the take with it this nicely then it's um who cuts the check let me put yeah so i don't need them to like what i ask them to do now if they like what i ask them to do it's even better so in the end of every year we have a meeting every single year with my team and i ask them if you could change anything

in your current job, what would it be? Because I like my team with me for years. Many of my team members have been, like, Chrissy's been with me for over 14 years. Many of my team members, my VA's been with me over five years. Right. So they spend quite a lot of their lives we spend together, right? And I want to make sure that my employees are happy in what they do. Now, they don't necessarily have a say. Like, if I want to figure out go high level, we are figuring out go high level. I don't care if you like it or not. Like, if you don't like it, then go get another job. I hope you like it, right? But if there are certain things that they don't have a choice in. But in the end of the year, I do ask them if you could change anything in your

current position. If you could give something off of your plate to somebody else because you're not enjoying it, what would that be? And they're like, no, I don't like doing this. I'm like, what, that's perfect. Give it to Raphael. Like Natalia told me this meeting is like, I don't like the spreadsheets. I'm like, fine. Rafael does the spreadsheets, the other spreadsheets in the other company. I'm like, he does an amazing job, have a conversation with him and put the spreadsheets on his plate. Right. And Rafael is like, yeah, I love to take it because he loves spreadsheets. right so they have a say but they don't have a say so when we decide to use a system or a process or something we are going that direction are you coming yes or no you know what i mean it's not an option for

them um and but it is in a in a sense of if there's really something they they just do it for the money but they hate it i will take it away from them give it to somebody who loves it on the team yeah no i love that with your team team go go with your agents what are you like listen guys you have to embrace this technology, you have to embrace this AI, or you're going to make it even more of an uphill battle for you if you want to succeed and thrive in the market. Is there anything specific that you're kind of like, hey, you have to pay attention to this? So I always share everything that I do. Everything. I don't hold back, right? So every technology, everything that I do. What happens over time, though, the downside to that, that on their end, they feel like I'm pitching them another product.

Right? And that's the downside to it. But I never pitch anything that I don't personally use. I just evolve over time. So something that I used seven years ago, like ClickFunnels, that was amazing. I have three, two comicable boards from ClickFunnels. I don't use ClickFunnels anymore. Sorry, guys.

Go high level because they became better. They had more features under one login. So then I took my whole data. database, my whole dashboard, all of my businesses, and I created, I call them buckets, but they're called subaccounts, right, inside a go high level. And now everything we do is in go high level. So I transition. When I transition, I tell everybody in my Goggram community, in the team gogo organization,

and for my coaching clients. But it does feel like to them over eight years, right, sometimes to some, not all, but it starts feeling over eight years that I'm pitching them something new, even though I evolved, I'm using the same product. pitching you something that I can personally use, sometimes on the receiving end, it does feel like that. But I do share everything than I do. Yeah. And I'm with you, right? Obviously, being a part of NAEA for so long, I mean, every time we talked about something, it got to that point too, right? Like, oh shit, what are these guys pitching? And it's like, no, I mean, literally we're using it.

This is the results we're getting. You know, I mean, I can't recommend it enough. I think we're a little dangerous. I think it has to do that people don't like change. Yeah. And I feel like the top one percenters, we love change because the faster we can pivot, the faster we can stay on top of the list. Yeah. So for us, change is good. For 99% of the people, change is like, oh, I don't know what it is. It's scary.

Is it going to work better than the one? You know what I mean? So to damn, you have to realize who's in the audience and who you're talking to, to them, it's going to feel like a pitch. To us, it's like, no, no, no, this is a good thing. Like, you're going to be able to do things faster, easier, cheaper. You know what I mean? it is a change in the end of the day.

Let's shift gears a little bit onto the social media side of things. And what shifts have you seen throughout 25 going into 26? I mean, obviously just a flood of content. It's just like you said earlier in the call with the ease of being able to create content with AI. It has your voice. I mean, you know, image is like, you know,

that's go-go, right? When you see even if you know it's AI. But seeing, you know, all of the changes, and things through 25 into 26. What are some of the trends worth paying attention to in social? I have a couple notes on the site here. So if you don't mind, I'm going to read them.

Higher away. So AI is your assistant now. Use AI to personalize your content, captions, and ads. So you're talking to buy your sellers and investors, not random people. So it will help you target in and your target audience, speak the language that they want to hear, and then do the call to action. So they actually choose you to be a realtor.

short form video runs the show so we all TikTok shorts or TikTok and shorts on YouTube property tours B-Rools are when you're not in it maybe you're in it but you're not looking at the camera directly right like you're doing something

you're not talking CAD or you're just showing a slow motion of a both right and talking about how EXP paid for this right whatever that would be B-roll testimonials quick tips if you're collecting testimonials like in the past, I mean, still, most people will do just the five stores for whatever

testimonials written format. If you could get a video testimonial from your clients and you can build into your website, I mean, that will work a trillion times better than any written testimonials ever going to get. Also, they're going to see that they're real humans and even better, take it one step forward and ask them to post it on their profile and make a collaborator. Because now there is no better testimonial to receive that were someone taking a little bit of a little bit of a person. the time of the day, put a video on their profile, which means now everybody who follows them sees their testimonial and makes you collaborators. So now everybody who follows you sees the testimonial. But it's always best in Hungarian say it's always best from the horse's mouth.

I don't know if that's what you say in English. You say that. If I took that video testimonial and put it on my profile, it doesn't have as much value if you put it on your profile and I share it tonight. Does that make sense? Because it comes to the consumer and they took the time of the day. So that's super important if you can get them to do it. Maybe you give something in return to say, hey, if you would be willing to give me a video testimonial, I'll get you a $200 gift to your favorite restaurant, whatever that is, right? Like dinner is on me at your favorite restaurant. I can give them something, so I'll give you that. Quick tips. People have an attention of a goldfish, so three seconds get to the point. Don't hug them in three seconds, you lost them. So don't stop.

First of all, guys, guys, guys, let's start here. Do not introduce yourself in every video. I see this mistake made so many times. It's not even funny. They already follow you. They know who you are. That's why they followed you because they know you. So do not start every videos.

Hi, my name is Gogo Bethi, and I'm your local top producer in the Broitin, Michigan. Like, stop it. Stop it right now. They already follow you. And if they don't follow you, they're going to know who you are eventually when they follow you. So go straight into the point here, have three seconds to hook them. Okay? Did you know that the market just dropped 7%?

What does that mean for you? you three seconds get to the point okay um stories daily connection so your feed which is where you post and it's going to be on there forever that's your storefront that's like your politically correct platform okay that's like if you have a store and you put things in there what would it be okay now stories is where you allow people to get a glimpse into your life which is only up there for 24 hours and then it goes to that's where you get to be you so do as many stories as you possibly can I recommend 10 to 15 a day. And people are like, what am I going to post about?

Whatever's going on in your life today? The thoughts that cross your mind, the appointments that you have, the closing that just made you $10,000 or made your clients $40,000. Whatever that is, talk about it. Let people get to know you. Let them see your life. Let them see your dogs, your kids, what restaurants you eat at, your fashion. Like, let them get to know you.

Okay, so that's stories. Go live. Like right now, I'm actually shooting this live on myself. I'm right here. That's why sometimes you see me talk to this one, right? So go live. Those are the long content. But long content, I would say, like right now, guys, I have 90,000 followers, nine people are watching it.

Yeah. People don't have patience for it. But the ones who do have the patience for it, they actually going to learn everything. Those are the top-borne presenters. Hi, guys. And then the ones who don't never make the time for it, they're not your people anyway. But that's not the point. The point is where you have nine people or 10 people or 15 people on a long content, these platforms looks at it,

that, oh, whatever you're talking about must be important because these people stayed on for the whole time, right? And then that content will help the health of your account. So create long format content. And the lives are guys, just be you. Like, when you decide to do social media, I don't care if I mispronounce a word. I don't care if I say something stupid. I don't care if something doesn't come on time to me. I'm like, oh, hold down.

Let me write this down. Just be you. When you're doing social media marketing, you have to love you and accept you the way you are. And as soon as you do that, the world, your people will find you. So you just have to be okay with being on camera and making mistakes on long form content because we are not editing this. I'm literally live, right? Okay.

The next one is the algorithms rewards consistency, not lock. Okay. So I post two posts a day and about 10 to 15 stories every single day. And I have been doing that since the cows came home, right? Like the last 15 years, social media was a thing. So if you decide to do social media, I would. want you to, that's your job. Like if you're a cold caller and you cold call every day from nine to noon, then that is your job. If you're a social media marketer, then your job is to make sure

you have content consistently. Not that you post today and then you're going to be back, be like, oh, I got two leads. So I'm going to take the month off because that's two commissions. I'm good. Right. Your brand's going to die. That means you're starting over every single month. And that is not what we're going to do. Okay. So consistency. Local always wins in real estate. So now my brand is international. Your brand is international as soon as you go on Instagrams of the world and Facebooks of the world. But as a realtor, where are you really going to make your money if you're only doing transactions? Now, if you're doing interactions, that's a different conversation.

But if you're doing transactions only and commissions only, local is what you want to do. So you really need to dial in that local algorithm, that local tagging location, using the right hashtag, specializing in a specific gated community, becoming the brand and the face in your local market for that community. local always wins in real estate commissions, not agent attraction. Agent attraction, go to Poland, Portugal, I don't know, we are in every single country, attract agents from anywhere.

And then if you create digital products, like my Goggram community, which is a membership-based product, I have members from almost every entry-old era and every part of the world and country. Okay, carousels. Carousels are cool, and now you can have up to 20,

if I remember correctly on Instagram. Carouss is like, you sometimes use same image or sometimes you use random images, but you're going to put content on there on a specific subject that you can't really explain in one photo. Right? So for example, if you guys go to my profile, which is Google's real estate, can I share my screen?

One percent. Hit the share button. And then this would be allow, and then this would be this one, I think, share. Let's see if it worked. We got it up. Okay, cool. So we're talking about Carousals, which is the top right one right here, but I want to show you guys which one I want you to find.

So for example, I am super, like my trackers have trackers. Guys, I'm the biggest nerd you'll ever find in this world. And John, you coach with me so you know, I mean, I literally have trackers bazoo. And so this specific post, because I have too many, so many, trackers, this post I think has 18 or 19 slides because I have 16 trackers and then I had table call to action at the end. So if you want to see a carousel in action, this is what I would recommend. Go to GoGo's real estate or you can scan this and you will see it. So it's different images and this one I use. I was in the same place, but I took, you know, my husband took like

20 pictures of me in the same place. So I use different images but in the same place. Sometimes use the same image. You just put different content on it. So that's a carousel. So it's multiple. photos instead of a video. So this would be a good example. Let's go back to this. Makes social media shoppable. So create content that you can actually sell. Okay, so that would be like a digital product. Why? Because if you're chasing commission, you're chasing, you're trading time for money for the rest of your life and you are not making money while you're sleeping. I want you to have multiple sources of income. There's three different kinds. There's active, passive, and reoccurring. I want you to have all of them. Your commission is active because you're

trading time for money. Passive could be like real estate investments and reoccurring could be like your downline at EXP because that money comes in every single month. And when you create digital products online and then you sell those digital products online, those people can buy your digital products at any time. And then even better, if you can make your digital product reoccurring, now you're playing in a whole other ballgame, right? Like my digital product, which is my Go-Garam community, is a reoccurring monthly. We create content, we teach entrepreneurs. Right now we have a huge challenge

for the whole year of 2026, which is called GoGoGo Social Media Challenge, where I teach you everything that I know about social media marketing in the full year of 2026. In January, we are teaching the fundamentals of social media marketing. Just in January, I released 36 videos

for you guys to watch and set up all of your social media the way mine is set up. And then in February, we're going every first Monday of the month releasing something new. But when you make your social media shopable, meaning you create them something that they can actually buy right there in the moment. You're making money.

You're creating content today. Somebody's watching it a week from now. They take action. You're sleeping. You wake up. You make money. Make sense. So do that on social media.

That could be like your listing presentation. It could be your buyer's guide. It could be how to break into a local lake community, whatever that you specialize in. You aren't exporting something. I guarantee you have skills. and I don't. I guarantee you have skills that somebody else doesn't.

But like going to check GPT, dump your brain in there. It will literally give you an ebook. You can sell, right? Like today is so easy, guys. So definitely create that source of income for yourself. Let your clients market for you. So these are those testimonials that I was talking about. If someone, think of it this way.

If George Moore and his wife just closed with you and they created a video on their own Facebook and Instagram talking about how amazing you were as their real, or to work with you. What do you think are the chances if they refer someone, they would actually work with you? Yeah. But I don't know if they can't do you through Zillow, right?

So let these people become your referring cheerleaders, right? Because you can close those deals much easier. And so all you need to do is be really good with your clients, customer service, right? You have to go above and beyond. You cannot be an average agent. You have to go above and beyond with those clients. Make sure they're super, super, super happy.

And at their happiest moment, you need to ask them to do a video. Like you could literally be right after closing. You hold the camera and ask them, hey guys, would you feel up to you? Pay it with a little 30 second video of how it was working with me right at the closing table. You can be the videographer and give them a dinner ticket.

Just say, I'll take you out to dinner after. Right? Get those things, have them become your cheerleaders and your influence or marketing people, right? Create once distributed everywhere. So what that means is, guys, I create a video in three seconds and it lives everywhere. It lives on YouTube.

It doesn't even TikTok because I don't do the whole Chinese spying on anything. So I've never had TikTok, but I have everything else. From the Instagrams to the Facebooks, to the LinkedIn's to the email database, the Facebook groups, the you name that I exist. I create one content and I literally have a team that pastures it everywhere. Just same content everywhere. So I exist everywhere. The reason why you have to do that is because we all have a preferred place.

So I love Instagram, you might love Facebook. If I don't exist on Facebook, that doesn't mean that you wouldn't love to work with me if I only existed on Facebook for you to find me. Right. So that is we have to exist everywhere because different people prefer different platforms and you have to be an option on that platform. And then data over feelings, you have to look at your engagements. You have to look at your reach. You have to look at your conversion. You have to look at those numbers, guys, because if you don't look at the actual number,

you don't know what really is working, right? And then if you don't know what really is working, you're making feeling decisions and you can't run a business on feelings. You need to run a business on data, a net sheet, a bottom line. So track your audiences, go into your engagement and look at it. And if I may have your permission, I want to show you something fun that they can do this year.

Yes. Okay. So do you see this picture on the left? Yes. It's not me. I found it on Pinterest. It was a pretty lady. To me, she looked super successful and I thought, I should look like that.

So I used an AI, then I grabbed that photo, I put it into an AI, and I created another image and I was like, oh, that looks pretty cute of me, isn't it? Wouldn't it be cool if I could just turn this into a video in less than one minute? I did all this in less than one minute. Here you go. So now I took that picture, I put it into another AI and I gave it a script and here you go. I know what this video will blow your mind. It took me less three minutes to create it and I don't even have makeup on in real life. I know if anything will make you want to learn from me, it is going to be this video. So just join my social media challenge in my

Go Getem community and I will teach you how to create million dollar content without ever leaving the couch. How do I stop sharing over here? I got you. I got you. So you. So you don't even have to make upon anymore. You don't even have to say words that you don't feel like saying. Like I feel sometimes in sales, it's like, oh, I don't want to do sales. Like gives you the touches. You don't have to go. Yeah. With the content, give it the script and this AI is going to say it. So now in my case, for you, it's going to be much easier because you don't have an accent. In my case, the AI puts an accent on top of my accent. So I didn't have the time to do it for

this one, but you can override this one where it's actually your voice where you read that script, right? So you just, you upload the photo, you upload the script, you read the script instead of generating your AI voice, right? And then you read the script and then it's exactly sound like you and it moves your left. Right. That's so incredible. Yeah, it's just wild how fast the acceleration, you know, versus our conversation this time last year to to kind of where we're at. And, you know, obviously it's not going to slow down any at all. So being able to have that, to me, then that leads to that actual human connection, right? You know, first step, because that's where the eyeballs are.

First step, get them engaging, interacting, then that can lead to the actual connection for us. So Google, as we're wrapping up this year's state of, kind of, you know, break out your crystal ball and a couple questions for you. one, where do you see this industry, real estate, heading in 26, into 27? I love this question because to me, it's such a silly question. I was like, how is the market? I'm like, have you ever been in a real estate market where people weren't moving or selling or buying or something? Have there ever been a year where there wasn't real estate transactions?

No, never. People always, sometimes they have to move for a job. Sometimes they have, they just have to move. There's always transactions. The question is, who's going to be doing those transactions? That's right. The question is, is it you or is it me? And to be honest with you, I think 2026 is going to be the easiest lead generation year for realtors or anybody because we have a million platforms to choose.

We have a million ways to do it from the lives to the reals to the good. So if you don't want to show your face, there are multiple accounts that literally have millions of followers and the person never showed their face. They did it through B-roll. There are so many ways to do it. But most importantly, we have all this help with all of this AI. Like literally, I hate to say, but you could be like a kindergartener and be the best marketer in the world because all you need to do pushes a couple buttons and wallet content is created. And then just be consistent at what you do. Be good at closing and handling to go like objection handling.

Like I don't get how good you are with your social marketing skills. If those leads come in and you suck at turning them over into a client, you're never going to be a top producing agent. So you kind of have to be good at everything. You have to be good at sales. You have to be good at marketing. You have to be good at objection handling. So you have to learn all of these things.

You have to be good at people skills, like when you show up in person. But I'm telling you for lead generation, social media marketing in 2026 will be the easiest. Like you can create content for the month in three minutes and then take the rest of the you're off. Like literally it's going to be that easy if you're willing to learn and invest some time into learning the AIs and the technologies of the world. I love that. Easy, I suppose, tap producing realtorrely. You can become the expert three months. And is that or do you have any other final piece of advice to to the agents to really thrive in 26? Yes. It's a big picture. sure, right? We talked about hourly rate. Very important to know what you're worth and don't do

anything that's not worth the time. Second, it's very important to stay consistent and have a calendar and honor it. Whatever's in your calendar is what you're doing today. You like it, you don't like it, you don't feel up to it. You kind of woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I don't care. I don't care. You want to make the money? Show up. Learn every aspect of the industry. So, meaning you have to be good at all of it. You have to be good at negotiations and objection handling, at closing, at follow up, you name it, everything. So you know your weaknesses. Learn on that. Coaches, I always have two coaches every single year because I guarantee you, as I learned a sentence for Veronica Figaroa, different devils, different levels, different levels, which means you're

never going to wake up one day and be like, I'm perfect. I just have everything figured out. No, you don't. Nobody does, right? So as we are growing, for example, as you become a team, a leader and you start having, you know, support team and all that. Was any of us born to be an amazing leader? No, that's a skill that you have to learn, right? And so everything that you know yourself, look back at your 2025 and look yourself in the mirror and be like, where could have I done better and pay for the expert?

So that is my biggest, what really changed my trajectory of my career is finally getting coaches. And I did not understand this before. And I hated when people were telling me this. It's like, no, I can figure, forget anything. I don't need to go pay for someone's knowledge. There's Google and there's AI and there's all of that, right? But that it wasn't tested.

Like no AI ever ran a multi-million dollar business with real humans. There's a human side to everything that you need to learn. So you have two ways. You learn it yourself, which is going to give you the hard lessons that you're going to have to go through and it's going to take time. Or you pay for someone who went through the whole lessons and not have to feel it at your own skin and speed of the time because they already done all of that. So in an hour, you can, well, an hour a week, an hour a month. however often they coach you, speed up your trajectory. And those are my things.

Speed up your trajectory. So A, you can make more money faster. B, it doesn't take you as much time that you're going to have to take away from life and family. And you can actually make money and have a life. I love that. GoGo, you're absolutely amazing. And for you guys listening in, if you're not a part of the Go Getem community, it's incredible. There's so much that GoGo gives and does.

and just above and beyond for the investment. And being a part of the community, you get to run through the social media challenge for 2026. And guys, I can't recommend it enough. Go-Go, you're absolutely incredible. I appreciate you. You're number seven. Here we go.

Time to run. Thank you so much. Get them. Go, get them, guys. See you, guys. Thanks. Thanks, Go-Go. Thank you.

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